


Camping Too Late

by thatcrazywriterley



Series: The Too Late Tales [30]
Category: AEW, All Elite Wrestling, Being The Elite (Web Series), Professional Wrestling, Young Bucks-Fandom
Genre: Backyard Camping, Multi, Polyamorous Relationships, Polyamory, brothers share a wife, fathers and sons, the bucks are great dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatcrazywriterley/pseuds/thatcrazywriterley
Summary: When they try to plan a weekend of peace for Reader, Nick and Matt take their two oldest sons camping in the backyard.
Relationships: Matt Jackson/Reader, Matt Jackson/Reader/Nick Jackson, Nick Jackson/Reader
Series: The Too Late Tales [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695274
Kudos: 3





	Camping Too Late

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_(GIF owned by tilldeathdousart on Tumblr)_

_Nick_

Y/N stood by the door, watching with her arms crossed as Lee and I pulled storage tub after storage tub from one of the garages. Our oldest son was eleven now, and he had grown into a kind and intelligent kid. His dark brown hair curled a little around his neck and ears. Lee had easy smiles and an infectious laugh.

“Mom’s having kittens,” my son said, looking back.

I grinned. He’d heard me say that to Y/N once, and he’d laughed for ten minutes straight afterwards. “She’ll be okay, bud.” I leaned over and ruffled his hair. _God, he’s getting tall._ “We’re just going into the back yard.”

Lee tugged a sleeping bag from one of the tubs and tossed it onto a pile. “Why aren’t they coming with us?”

“Mattie has a trip with her co-op group. And Nicole and Ty are going to visit with Mamma and Papa,” I replied. I’d found the tub that had the tents in it. “Mama is gonna have some time by herself.”

He shook his head and grinned, looking so much like Matt that it caught me off guard. “Good. She deserves it.”

I hooked my arm around him and pulled him close, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. “Yeah, little man, she does.”

_Matt_

Nick and Lee were already getting everything out when I pulled in. I’d dropped Mattie off with her homeschool group for their trip to San Diego. She’d wanted to drive herself, but we’d vetoed that quick. She wasn’t happy about it, but Nick and I put our collective foot down. Mattie would have all weekend to get over it.

Once I’d dropped our eldest off, I’d taken Nicole and Ty to our mom and dad’s. I couldn’t thank our parents enough for everything they’d done for us. Mom supported Y/N when her own mom couldn’t be around. Dad did everything he could to teach us out to be good fathers. But more than anything, the two of them loved our kids more than anything in the world. I guess that’s why it wasn’t weird for my thirteen- and seven-year-old to be incredibly excited to stay with them for a night.

Y/N was at the door, watching everything with her brows furrowed. RJ, now nine, came pelting out of the house as soon as he saw me. He ran by his mom and nearly tripped over the pile of sleeping bags on the driveway. “Papa! You’re back! Can we go now? Huh? Can we?”

I laughed and pulled him into my side for a hug. “As soon as Dad and I get everything together, little dude. And say goodbye to Mama.”

He frowned. “Where’s Mama going?”

“She’s staying inside.”

His frown got deeper. “Alone?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Mama is going to have a nice, quiet weekend. And she’ll be waiting here for us tomorrow morning. I promise.”

“If we get scared in the yard… if we want to come home, will she come get us?” RJ’s lower lip quivered. He was still scared of the dark sometimes, and Y/N was the only one who could calm him down enough to go back to sleep.

“Absolutely,” I promised, kissing the top of his head. “All we have to do is call.”

Our middle son nodded. After a moment, he went to join Lee and Nick at the pile. Y/N watched as Nick and I shouldered the heavy tents and the firepit. The boys dragged the sleeping bags around the back of the house and into the yard.

I could feel my wife watching us, and I knew that she’d be peeking through the blinds as we took the boys on a backyard camping trip.

_Nick_

It took Matt and I almost an hour to put the tent together. Lee and RJ went through the sandy brush behind the yard to grab twigs and branches for our campfire. Once, Matt had to stop and yell at them for swatting at each other with sticks. Another time, I had to put them both on separate ends of the patio for running around the pool.

“Were we that bad?” I asked as Matt hammered the last tent pole into the ground. I tried not to think about the holes that were going to be left in my yard.

My brother laughed and dropped the rubber mallet into the now empty tent bag. “Worse. Remember when Mom used to come out yelling when we were doing our backyard shows? She screamed bloody murder at us half the time.”

“God help us if they want to go into the business, too.” It was one thing to train with Mattie in the old PWG ring we’d bought. I couldn’t imagine the boys getting into it like we did.

Matt tossed the sleeping bags into the tent and looked at the pile of sticks that they boys brought. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked sideways at me. “Are we supposed to do _all_ of this the old-fashioned way?”

“Matches. And keep a bucket of sand and the water hose handy,” I laughed. While Matt handled the fire safety precautions, I looked at the patio where the boys still pouted. I clapped my hands and let out a whistle. “Let’s do it, Jacksons!”

Lee and RJ looked at each other for a moment and then came trotting across the yard, looking appropriately contrite.

“So,” I said, crossing my arms and looking at them. “It’s going to be dark in a couple hours. Papa is getting everything ready for the campfire. What do you say the three of us make sure we’ve got everything in the cooler for dinner?”

Lee nodded and moved off toward the Yeti that sat in the shade by the tent. RJ took a step and then stopped. “Dad, what do we do if we gotta go to the bathroom?”

“Number one or number two?”

He bounced on his toes and tugged at the back of his pants. “Number two.”

A number one was easier. Go behind a bush. But it looked like we’d have to break our house rule early on in this camping experience. I took him by the hand and lead him toward Matt’s place. Y/N was staying in my house tonight, so it’d be easier to sneak in and out next door.

_Matt_

I looked up from the fire pit as Nick walked by with RJ in tow. Our middle son was tugging on the back of his shorts, a clear sign that he was about two seconds away from an accident. You’d think he’d have gotten over that now that he was seven, but RJ was different. Y/N had talked us into getting him tested when he was six after something her sister said. Now we knew he was on the spectrum, and we learned something new every day about how unique he was and how we would navigate the world with him.

“Little man, when you get done with that, want to help me set up the camp chairs?” I grinned at our oldest son. The three of us had joked about it in the past… the fact that Lee looked so much like me that it was impossible to question who his biological father was. He had my hair and my eyes, the same shape of my face. He even smiled the same as me.

By the time Nick and RJ snuck out the back door of my house, Lee and I had put camp chairs out in a semicircle around the fire pit. I’d gotten the flames going and sustained them with some dry leaves, shredded paper, and some stripped limbs from one of the bushes. Three wire coat hangers had been painfully unwound and straightened out with a good amount of frustration, a few stabs, and a set of needle nose pliers. One of the chairs held a packet of hot dogs, a sleeve of Hershey’s chocolate bars, a box of graham crackers, and a bag of marshmallows. Some hot dog buns and a bottle of ketchup sat on top of the cooler. The sky was darkening, and stars began to twinkle overhead.

I didn’t need to look to know that our wife was standing at the window, peering out into the darkness through the blinds. I waved in the direction of the house, hoping that she’d understand that we were fine. Nick swept RJ up beneath his arms, blew a raspberry on the back of his neck, and swung him into his Lightning McQueen camp chair.

“Food first, then s’mores,” I said, ripping into the food. Nick brought the hangers over and speared them into the hot dogs. He put one in Lee’s hand and moved his camp chair until it was close enough to the fire pit to roast the hot dog but not so close that our son would get burned. I took one of the hangers, speared a second hot dog, and slouched into a chair.

Nick pulled up his chair and plopped RJ in his lap. I was surprised that our son didn’t resist. Sometimes he didn’t like being touched much. He had his moments and his meltdowns. But it seemed like Nick was having a good day with him.

After hot dogs came the s’mores. Lee set his first marshmallow completely on fire. The second slipped off the wire onto the grass. By the time he got his third one roasted just right, RJ was already on his second nearly perfect s’more. Of course, he was covered from the tip of his nose to the collar of his t-shirt in melted chocolate and gelatin. He was having fun, so I counted it as a win.

***

I watched from the living room window for a while. The four of them sat around the fire pit for hours as the sky turned dark and the stars came out. I watched as they roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. As Nick and Matt laughed at RJ with chocolate all over his face. As they cleaned him up and plopped him back in his Cars chair. I watched as the fire started to burn down, as my husbands drew squeals of fright from our sons with playful ghost stories, and then as the boys began to yawn.

Matt disappeared into the tent with RJ and Lee while Nick took care of the fire pit. He smothered it first with a bucket of sand and then soaked it well with the water hose. Smoke and steam curled up into the dark sky as Nick turned the pile over with a garden spade, making sure there weren’t any embers still burning. Everyone in California knew how to stop a fire from getting out of control in the height of summer.

Nick looked up, catching sight of me in the window. He didn’t need to say it. I could hear his words echoing in my ears. _Trust us_. And God knew I did. I guess I just wasn’t ready to let go of my little boys being little.

And for the first night in a long time, RJ didn’t have any nightmares.


End file.
